The Riddle of Humanity
by Mellia Bee
Summary: A burst of searing heat and noise and pain wrapped around him, blooming bright against the blackness of the sky. Then he fell. Of course she went after him, once the battle was over - Amazons do not leave their dead. Fix-it fic. Contains heavy spoilers for Wonder Woman (2017) and semi-graphic descriptions of injuries.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

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Fire.

A burst of searing heat and noise and pain wrapped around him, blooming bright against the blackness of the sky. For one endless heartstopping instant, the light spread - and then it was gone, flames curling quietly and anticlimactically out of existence.

There was nothing, then.

He was falling, blinded by the light, deafened by the blast. He would have cried out in terror, but there was no air in his lungs, no way to draw breath.

Mercifully, Steve Trevor was unconscious before he hit the ground.

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It seemed an age before she could get away after the battle.

Of course she went after him, running, leaping as far as she could in the direction she'd seen the explosion. Her whole body hurt, quivering with exhaustion after the grueling fight with Ares, but she staunchly ignored it.

An Amazon could have perhaps survived such an explosion - but a mere human?

The sun was well above the horizon by the time she started finding pieces of the wreckage - a wing here, a shattered propellor blade there. Burned cloth, scorched metal, the stench of fire and ozone and burned meat…

Eventually, she found his body.

He had landed in a tree, tangled in the branches. It took her precious minutes to get to him, moving carefully, terrified that an incautious shift would dislodge him and send him plummeting to the ground.

She got him down at last, cradling his broken body tenderly against the metal of her breastplate, lowering him to the leaf-littered forest floor. A bitter sob caught in her throat as she knelt over him, fierce anger and loss aching through her bones.

If she hadn't known it was him, she would never have guessed his identity. He didn't even look like a man anymore - bones broken, body burned black. His hair was gone, right arm blown away below the elbow, flesh seared by the heat of the explosion. Raw burns covered his body, vivid scarlet deepening to black wherever the scorched woolen uniform had given way, and when she reached out a hand to lightly touch the line of his jaw, his blackened skin tore and slid and came off beneath her fingers.

With a sharp intake of breath, she snatched her hand away as if she had somehow hurt him. A dead man was beyond pain, she knew - but she couldn't bear to damage him any further. Instead, shuddering, she settled her palm carefully against the burned fabric covering his chest and bowed her head.

He had been a good man. Confusing certainly, and headstrong and set in his ways, with peculiar ideas about weapons and outfits and truth - but a very, very good man after all. He had loved her, and she...

Well.

Diana wasn't sure if she even knew what it was to love a man, but if it was this peculiar sensation in her heart that radiated all the way out to her fingertips, then yes. Yes, she loved him too.

 _Mother_ , her heart cried, writhing in agony. _Oh, Mother - I understand so much, now_.

At length, she collected herself, tipping up her head to look at the pale sky between the leaves overhead. Her hands were still shaking, so she closed her eyes and took a long breath, willing her body to calm, trying to find it in herself to let him go.

Her left hand eventually grew steadier, but her right hand, still laid against the dead man's chest, kept vibrating - and then Diana's eyes flew open wide as she finally noticed.

She wasn't shaking anymore.

But he _was_.

"Steve?" she begged, leaning over him until the ends of her dark hair brushed the ground on each side of his face. "Captain. Steve, can you hear me?"

The ticking of his watch, strapped to her arm above her gauntlet, provided a steady counterpoint to the faint, uneven heartbeat and the halting, ragged rise and fall of his chest beneath her palm.

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It took forever to get him back to the army base.

She didn't dare move him much, didn't dare lift him in her arms now that she knew there was still a breath of life left in him. He was shivering, cold to the touch, deeply in shock.

Her training had not only been in the art of battle. Antiope had trained her with weapons, but Epione had taught her a little healing - and it was her voice that now echoed in Diana's mind, reminding her of a long-ago day spent tending an Amazon who had fallen awkwardly from the cliffs.

 _If her neck is hurt, if her back is hurt, then do not move her. Wait for us._

This time, though, there would be no phalanx of Amazons coming to Diana's aid, no hope of outside assistance. She was on her own, with a gravely wounded man dying on her hands.

Shucking off the long coat she wore over her armor, she laid it gently over Steve Trevor's ruined, unresponsive body before vaulting lightly to her feet and looking around with renewed determination.

Sticks. She would need long, straight sticks and something to tie them with.

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They got a ride back to the medical camp in an army truck that had driven out to find the pieces of the airplane. The two young soldiers driving it had stared in undisguised surprise at her unfamiliar armor and bare legs as Diana stalked out of the treeline toward them.

"I need something flat," she'd ordered. "A board, if you have it. And a ride to your nearest healer. I have a survivor."

They _did_ have a board - a broad, flat one to prop under the tires in case the truck got stuck in the mud. The taller of the two soldiers carried one end of the plank while she carried the other end, and the second man walked alongside, making sure Captain Trevor didn't fall off.

It really was a miracle they had come when they did.

She had splinted Steve's broken bones as well as she could, pulling his crooked limbs carefully straight and binding them to her collection of straight sticks with her lasso. Steve had always complained about that lasso, disliked the heat of it, but now she found herself hoping that it would warm his cold body at least a little.

Then she had faced the problem of transportation.

The splints would do for a while, but she couldn't carry him on her own. It wasn't an issue of weight - she simply couldn't carry him and keep him as flat and straight as he needed to be. Just as she'd been considering her options, the roar of the army truck's engines had alerted her, and she had gone to meet them.

It was fortunate for them that they were British soldiers instead of German - because she would have taken the truck either way.

They offered her a seat in the cab, but Diana refused, crouching in the back next to her spy. He was still shaking, fine tremors racking his body from head to toe. Whether it was the movement of the truck or the warmth of the lasso, Diana wasn't sure - but his eyes shifted behind closed eyelids occasionally, and he groaned faintly in mute agony whenever they went over rough ground.

"You're going to be all right," she promised quietly. She didn't want to touch him for fear of tearing his burned, fragile skin again, so she laid a careful hand on the toe of his hobnailed shoe - the place least likely to hurt him that she could think of. "I am right here, and I will take you to your healers. They can save you."

She didn't wait for the truck to stop completely when they reached the compound, instead lifting the board with Steve's body and balancing it carefully before slipping out the back and sprinting smoothly toward the cluster of tents.

Men stared or turned aside, gagging at the sight of the captain's terrible injuries, but Diana ignored them completely, scanning the tents desperately. Where was it, the red symbol he had told her stood for healing in this world? It had to be - ah, there it was.

She burst into the medical tent, holding Steve's body out in front of her. "Heal him," she ordered simply, and watched as pandemonium erupted.

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They said he wouldn't live to see another day.

"His injuries are simply too grave," Dr. Goss tried to explain. "Quite frankly, it's astonishing that he's still alive."

Diana looked down at the man in the bed, swathed in layers and layers of white gauze. The stump of his right arm was carefully wrapped, and his limbs and back were braced. Only the faint rasp of his constant struggle for air gave away the fact that he was alive. If possible, it was even more uneven than it had been when she had found him.

He was fading.

"Steve Trevor is a man with infinite strength of will," she argued passionately. "You are a healer, and yet you say you cannot heal him?"

The little doctor took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, and shook his head. His hair was prematurely gray, but the war was rapidly turning it white.

"Ma'am," he told her. "This boy's got one collapsed lung, more broken ribs than I can count, and a back that's broken in at least two places. Both legs are broken, he's lost part of his arm, and he has third degree burns over seventy percent of his body - and he inhaled gas shortly before taking off, so his only good lung is blistering from the inside. It doesn't matter how much strength of will he has - his body is dying."

Confused, Diana shook her head. "But what will you _do_?" she asked again, not entirely understanding. She had assumed if she could get him to a healer, they could save him. "What will you do to help him?"

Dr. Goss patted her arm kindly, and tried to smile. "We have him on morphine," he explained. "Painkillers. We can keep him comfortable until he dies."

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She stayed with him, sitting beside his bed and watching his faint breathing grow progressively shallower and more labored as the day wore slowly on. A few of Captain Trevor's teammates came by, but they were called away, and now she sat alone. A well-meaning nurse had brought her a long coat, and Diana tugged it tightly around her shoulders, trying to think.

If only they were on Themiskyra; if only she could figure out how to take him there. The healers there would perhaps know what to do, how to help. She felt incredibly useless, just sitting here and watching her companion die. They'd given her a solution to wash his eyes with, irritated from the mustard gas - but she knew it was more to make her feel useful than anything else.

It was breaking her heart.

A nurse came through, lighting the lamps. At some point, dusk had fallen again, and the light she carried sent her shadow flickering across the walls of the tent. "You doin' all right, sweetie?" she asked. Diana hesitated and then slowly shook her head.

"No," she answered. "No, I do not think so."

The nurse looked at Steve's bandaged body, and then back at Diana with deep sympathy. "I don't think any of us are, come to think of it," she agreed quietly. Her once-pristine white apron was stained, and there was blood on the hem of her dress. "But he saved a whole lot of lives out there. A bunch of people will have a future now, thanks to him, and that's got to count for something."

She moved on, leaving Diana alone with her thoughts and her dying friend. Mechanically, the warrior dipped the corner of the soft cloth in her bowl, dabbing it tenderly against the burned, swollen skin of his eyelids. Steve choked, coughed, a fine fresh spray of blood coating what was left of his blistered, blueish lips. His only lung was failing, airways slowly closing from the gas he had inhaled.

He was dying. The doctor had quietly told her that Steve would not live out the night.

It was true; he had saved a lot of lives with the willing sacrifice of his own. Many soldiers would get to go home. They would find people special to them - fall in love - get married - eat breakfast together in the mornings - have children and watch them grow.

But Steve Trevor would never get to have that. Not now.

The lamp was too bright. Diana closed her eyes against it, heart twisting in pain, and a tear dropped from her eye and splashed against her knee.

Then a shadow moved in front of the light, and she knew she was no longer alone.

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 **So yes. Hi. _No_ , I have not stopped writing my other stories. But this is a special request from my sister. A couple days ago I came home late to find her waiting up for me with the biggest Bambi eyes you ever saw. Disney's got nothing on her, I swear. "I have another movie you need to write an ending for," she announced immediately. Turns out she'd just seen Wonder Woman, and was heartbroken. **

**So, because I love my sister, and because I apparently have a weakness for doomed couples involving soldiers named Steve, I did some quick research and hammered this out. It will be three chapters long. Hope you enjoy! :)**

 **Textile Nerd Note: The reason Steve's clothing didn't entirely burn up is because WWI soldiers' uniforms were made of wool, which has a very high burning point, although still significantly lower than the temperature of burning hydrogen/oxygen. Yes, his clothes would be scorched. No, they wouldn't be burned all the way up, because burning hydrogen travels upward, gravity pulled Steve downward, and wool stops burning as soon as the heat source is removed.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

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It was a telegram boy - a young man who couldn't be older than sixteen or seventeen. He drew closer, his posture that of someone who has been drawn by mere curiosity, but something about him made the hairs stand up on the back of Diana's neck.

"What do you want?" she demanded, straightening in her seat and discreetly gathering her feet beneath her so she could stand quickly if necessary. Her hand dropped casually to touch the edge of her shield, propped against the side of Steve's cot.

The boy raised his eyebrows, a trifle more cockily than his position warranted. "Only to watch," he commented lightly. "He's dying, isn't he?"

Diana's breath snagged. "He is. And are you here to mourn?"

"I am here to watch," the boy repeated again, an edge of gentle chastisement in his voice. "It is a natural consequence. When mortals clash with gods, the mortals die. Perhaps it is good that you learn this lesson now, Daughter of Zeus."

The entire medical tent grew very still. Before, there had always been some sound, some movement - groans of pain, the quiet voices of the nurses, the rustle of sheets as wounded men shifted restlessly. Now, the lamps all guttered for a moment before burning twice as bright. Every man in every bed lay stone-still, and the nurses were nowhere to be seen.

Diana drew herself slowly to her feet, eyeing the messenger boy carefully. Every nerve felt alive, excruciatingly aware as she scanned him head to toe. The lamplight flickered at his feet as if alive, and an impish half-smile grew across his face at her scrutiny.

"Have you seen enough?" he asked at last, stepping a little closer toward the foot of the bed. In a flash, Diana's shield was on her arm, a warning look in her eyes even as realization dawned. He raised his hands in mock surrender, stepping back, still smiling.

"Hermes." Diana's voice dropped, low and careful. Besides Ares, he was the one other Olympian unaccounted for after the ancient slaughter - the messenger, the clever one, friend to the god of war. "What do you want with him? Are you here to take his soul?"

The young god raised an eyebrow, shrugging elaborately, putting his hands in his trouser pockets. "He is a human. A dying human. There is nothing I could want from him, and his soul is not mine to take. But history has been made, and I would watch the aftermath."

Diana was barely listening, her attention arrested again by the flickering light around his feet. Hermes followed her eyes and then grinned, wiggling his bare toes. Unlike Steve Trevor, unlike the other soldiers, unlike all the doctors and nurses and assorted personnel that Diana had seen, Hermes was not wearing sturdy hobnailed boots. He was wearing -

"Do you like my sandals?" Hermes asked, kicking one foot out. The wings on the back of his footwear fluttered, fracturing the lamplight. His voice and face conveyed the very soul of inquisitive sincerity, but self-satisfaction practically oozed from him. Diana felt suddenly lightheaded, a stab of incredulous hope sending her reeling. Blinking, she dragged her eyes back up to his face.

"I do," she answered as casually as she could manage. The air in the tent pressed almost oppressively against her skin. "Do you think they would fit me?"

Hermes laughed, throwing his head back, shoulders shaking in an overwhelming fit of hilarity.

"Oh, Diana," he chided when he could talk again. He reached up, adjusted his telegram boy's hat at a rakish angle. "You should know better than to try and fool the god of tricks. My sandals are mine, and they stay on my feet."

"They could save his life." Diana's heart was in her throat, but she tried to talk around it. "If I could take him back to Themiskyra - if _you_ took him to Themiskyra…"

Hermes was still giggling brightly, as if she'd told the best joke he had ever heard. Diana switched tracks.

"This man," she raised her voice, commanding attention, "is brave, clever. He is - a spy." She was mentally scrambling, trying to come up with things that would appeal to the mercurial Olympian in front of her. "He has traveled far. Together, we have defeated Ares; does he not deserve a reward for it?"

The telegraph boy bounced on his toes, setting the wings at his heels fluttering. "Tell me, little Diana," he said at last, his tone irritatingly paternal even though he looked younger than she did. "Who was it freed Ares from the brazen pot? Who sat beside me at Olympian feasts in days past? It is true, I hold no special love for the god of war now, but we were friends long ago." He shrugged again. "I do not care to save his murderer's friend."

The lamps guttered again as he turned away, and Diana knew he was leaving - and with him went her last hope for saving the man lying unconscious before her. She could not fight Hermes for the sandals - his gift was speed, and he could outrun her without a thought. But there might be another way.

"Wait!" she cried.

Hermes paused at the door of the tent, one hand already holding the tent flap open, and looked back carelessly over his shoulder.

Diana planted her feet and stood tall. "Hermes, son of Zeus - I challenge you to a game of wits."

For the first time, undisguised interest crossed the Olympian's face, and he turned back, letting the flap fall closed. The lamps brightened again.

"A game?" he asked incredulously. "Of wits? Is _this_ what happens when Amazons mingle with mortals? You have become as egotistical as they."

Diana hadn't smiled since Captain Trevor's plane exploded in the sky, but now she spread her lips and showed her teeth. To one unfamiliar with the Amazons, it might have looked like a smile.

"A riddle," she clarified. "If you guess it within three tries, I will never challenge you again. If you fail, you lend me your winged sandals."

Hermes' eyes were bright, cunning. He crossed the floor and stood on the other side of Steve's bed, facing her over the dying man's body.

"Not good enough," he negotiated. "If I guess within three tries, I get your golden lasso."

Diana caught her breath. The lasso was a heritage of her people - a cherished artifact. Then she set her chin and nodded resolutely. "Done."

"And done." Hermes shoved his cap back at a still more gravity-defying angle and cocked his head at her. "How much time do I have to guess in?"

She was already moving, pushing up the sleeve of her long coat to unbuckle the watch above her gauntlet. She remembered vividly the night Steve had kissed her. Afterwards, they had sat together in a pool of lamplight, watching the snow through the window, and he had taught her how to tell time on his father's watch.

"Three minutes," she said, and laid the watch gently on the light sheet covering Steve's bandaged body. The captain lay unmoving, too deeply under the effects of morphine to feel her touch. The watch rose and fell with each slight breath.

Hermes grinned. "Give me the riddle," he announced. "I am ready."

The watch ticked. Diana threw her head back in an unspoken challenge.

"The riddle is - humanity."

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Hermes blinked. "Humanity? Humanity isn't a riddle."

"It is the greatest riddle," Diana countered immediately. "But if the cleverest of the Olympians does not think he can answer it…"

The shot struck home. Hermes flapped an impatient hand - it was well known that he loved gaming. "I can answer it," he growled. "Exactly what about humanity are you asking?"

"Their greatest motivation. The driving force behind mankind. Answer me this, and the golden lasso is yours."

For an instant, the Olympian frowned, and then laughed. "Easy. The answer is Lust."

He was close - he was _so_ close - but not close enough. Diana swallowed her heart and shook her head. "Wrong."

Hermes sneered. "You must have been here long enough to have noticed the way men look at you."

She had. She had felt eyes on her body in London, along the battlefront, behind the lines - but not _all_ eyes, and not all of the eyes following her had held lust. There had also been kindness, affection, trust. Lust was a force, but not the one that drove mankind the most. "Nevertheless," she replied, "you are wrong."

"Greed, then," the Olympian fired back. "You cannot look at this world and tell me that men aren't motivated by greed."

"Would he be lying in this bed if greed was humanity's driving motivation?" Diana demanded, gesturing at Captain Trevor. "Greed would have sent him running in the other direction, more concerned about his own life. No, greed is not the answer. You have one more try."

Hermes opened his mouth to argue, and then clamped it shut. The watch ticked. The Olympian closed his eyes, opened his eyes, looked at the ceiling of the tent. Steve's shallow breath gurgled wetly in his chest.

Then the Olympian straightened, looked keenly into Diana's face. She stared back, willing herself not to glance down at the dying man between them, locking the answer to her riddle away in her heart so it would not shine out of her eyes and illuminate the whole tent.

For a very, very long moment, neither one moved. The world would never see this showdown - Zeus' son and Zeus' daughter locked in silent combat over a mortal man's deathbed.

Then Hermes smiled. It was a very, very slow smile, spreading all the way across his face.

"Hate," he said simply. "The driving force behind humanity is hate."

The breath that Diana let out sounded very nearly like a sob.

"No," she half-whispered. "It is not hate. You have made three guesses, and failed all of them. I win the contest."

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Hermes howled.

He no longer looked like a young telegram boy - his face twisting, suddenly ages older. The lamps flickered, flames guttering so low that the tent was thrown into almost darkness.

"You stand here," he roared, "in the middle of a battlefield - and have the _nerve_ to tell me hate is not humanity's greatest motivation? Look at the wars, at the death, at the contempt! If hate is not the answer, then there is no answer, and this riddle is void."

Diana set down her shield. "There is an answer," she assured him. "Humanity is both the simplest and the greatest riddle of all time, and I have been taught the answer - and the answer is not hate. If you have not learned it before now, then you have not spent enough time among the mortals you claim superiority over."

Seething, Hermes clenched his fists.

"I will not give you my sandals," he growled. "I say it was not a fair riddle."

With a quick movement Diana shed her coat and let it slide to the floor, standing tall and proud in her armor, gleaming in the low lamplight. The air crackled with electricity, sizzling around the edges of her gauntlets.

"Then you will bear the consequences," she warned. "I am Diana, Princess of Themiskyra, daughter of Hippolyta. I am the God-killer, forged by Zeus himself. You may be faster than I - but I am more patient, so believe me when I say that if you do not keep your end of the bargain, in the end I will find you and exact reparation."

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The sandals did fit, quite well. Hermes, his changeable temper a little restored, perched on the end of a cot and watched as she did up the laces.

"Olympus would have enjoyed this story," he mused. "Assuming I could ever bring myself to tell it. 'Diana, Princess of Themiskyra, who challenged a god to save the life of a mortal.'"

Diana tied the last knot and stood, raising herself up on her toes. The golden wings fluttered at her heels, lifting her easily. Satisfied, she turned, bending over the still figure on the cot - and her heart almost stopped.

Steve's face was sunken, breath rattling and whistling in his closing throat. What little skin she could see behind the gauze and burns was ashen.

The doctor had said he would not live to see another day - and it was already night, with a long flight ahead.

After all this - and now would he die on the flight to aid?

She picked up her bowl and cloth, carefully wiped his face and eyes one last time. Then she bent, grasping the sides of the cot and lifting it experimentally. It weighed hardly anything, but the shape was unwieldy.

"You are aware he will only die again," Hermes pointed out idly. "Ten years, twenty - in less than a hundred, he will be gone."

Diana set the cot down again. With nimble fingers, she tied back the tent flaps, and then stepped back to Steve's side.

"I know," she answered simply.

She never saw the Olympian leave. The lamplight dropped again before slowly returning to normal, and when she looked up, the telegram boy was gone. All around her, the subdued sounds of the medical tent started up again.

There was no time to waste. Stooping, Diana lifted Steve's cot once more, and then stepped easily into the air.

When the kind nurse with the lamp came back to give him some more morphine, they were long gone.

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Flying to Themiskyra was not easy.

Certainly it was fast and smooth, but if she flew too low they ran the risk of some trigger-happy soldier taking a shot at her dim shape in the night sky - and if she flew too high, Captain Trevor started gasping frighteningly for air.

He was undoubtedly failing. Every time she lowered her ear to his chest, his heartbeat was fainter, breathing more labored. The morphine was beginning to wear off too, and his face in the moonlight was contorted with agony as he whimpered in pain.

To pass the time, she talked to him. There was no way of knowing if he could hear her or not - the doctor had said both eardrums were ruptured with the explosion - but if it could possibly give him any comfort, she was determined to do it.

"You told me about your people," she said softly. "Now let me tell you about mine."

She told him, then - told him about the cliffs, about the sand, about the grassy slopes where one could lie and dream for hours. She told him about her mother, about her aunts, about her training and her pastimes and her dreams.

At some point, she looked down and realized with a shock of surprise that his eyes were open - just tiny slits of reflected moonlight between swollen eyelids.

"Steve?" she asked.

He didn't answer, just looked at her for a long moment - or at least, looked in her direction. She wasn't sure how much he could see or comprehend, but she shifted her grip and lifted the cot a little, stooping until her face was close to his.

"I'm taking you home," she promised. "My home. Themiskyra."

The expression on his disfigured face didn't change. He was almost smiling a little, forehead smoothing slowly beneath the gauze bandages, just looking at her. Then, very quietly, his eyes slid shut and his head rocked limply back.

She didn't hear him breathe any more after that.

With a cry of desperation, Diana tightened her grip on the dying man's cot and spurred the winged sandals on with all her might, plunging forward through the night in pursuit of her near-hopeless mission.

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 **Hello, folks! Thank you so much for your kindness and comments. You all are the best!**

 **So, Hermes (Roman name: Mercury) was the messenger god in Greek mythology. And yes, he did let Ares out of a jar-trap, or so the myths say. He was always the one who played tricks and jokes on the others, the god of travelers and thieves and wit. His winged sandals gave him speed and flight - and he was one of the ones who conducted the souls of the dead to the afterlife. If any of the Greek pantheon escaped the movie's slaughter, I think he would have been among them.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

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Water.

Cool, fresh, distantly soothing. He couldn't open his eyes to see it; could only dimly hear a voice murmuring in his ear and feel a strong hand at the nape of his neck as the wave swept up his body and broke against his chin.

There was nothing else in the world - only the locked prison of pain that seemed to ease a little as the coolness flooded in, fitting against him closer than his own ragged skin.

Then the water closed over his face, and Steve Trevor sighed and slipped away.

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It was a story the Amazons would tell forever - the night Diana came home, flying like the Furies, wearing the golden sandals of Hermes, and carrying a mortal man so close to death that there was no breath on his lips. She didn't slow, didn't stop, tearing past them all until she reached the healing pools, plunging both herself and her burden into the waters of renewal.

By the time they reached her, she was treading water, supporting the man's head against her shoulder with one hand while she gently splashed water over his face with the other. On her feet, the winged sandals thrashed, displeased at being held so long underwater, but she was too focused to notice or care. Nobody recognized the burned, bandaged, disfigured mortal in her arms as the the dapper young soldier who had brought war to their shores so recently.

"Help him," she begged, looking up - and the droplets streaming down her face were not all from the pool. "Please."

Hippolyta threw off her heavy cloak and was the first to reach her daughter's side.

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Not all the Amazons were exactly pleased, once they realized who the man was.

"He's the reason Antiope and the others are dead," some murmured, levelling distrustful glances at Diana's burden. "Throw him back into the sea. He deserves to die for what he's done."

Others disagreed. "That decision is in the hands of the Fates," Menalippe argued, eyes growing distant. "For a mortal man to come twice to our shores - this has not happened before. This is significant. Perhaps he has a destiny greater than we can see."

Hippolyta ignored them all, cupping her daughter's face in her hands and searching the precious features. Only when she was certain that Diana was not hurt did she direct her attention to the thing in her daughter's arms.

The soaked gauze bandages were beginning to unwind, trailing white and ragged in the water, and some of the scorched flesh left exposed was starting to slough off as well. Only the faintest flutter beneath the line of the slack jaw gave away that there was still any life left at all.

Even to a battle-hardened Amazon, the sight was gruesome. The queen looked back into Diana's face, eyebrows raised questioningly.

"You brought him back?"

There was fire in Diana's eyes when she met her mother's gaze - a certainty and maturity that had never been there before. Somehow, in the short time since she had left, the young princess had come into her own.

"I could not leave him," she breathed, and her hands were very gentle as she held the dying man's head, supported his body in the water. Something new and tender and very raw quivered in her voice as she continued. "I have seen too much death already."

The grief and appeal written plainly across Diana's face tore her mother's heart from top to bottom. This was her little girl - the soft-hearted child who had come to her countless times with tear-streaked cheeks and a wounded seabird in her hands, begging her to fix it.

In some ways, things had never changed.

Decision made, the queen raised her head. Epione, who had driven the rest of the Amazons out while they had been talking, approached the edge of the healing pool with silent feet. On the battlefield she was only one of many skilled warriors, but in the healing chambers she held undisputed sway, and the others gave way before her.

There was no better healer.

"There is not much life left in him," Hippolyta warned.

Her tone implied consent, and Diana's face glowed with stubborn faith. "But there _is life_."

Epione slid into the pool to join them. Coolly, dispassionately, she touched the slowly fluttering pulse at his throat, held a wet hand over his bloody lips to feel the faint, unsteady passage of air.

"His heart is strong," she said at last. "I will do what I can, if he can bear it."

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Sunsets were splendid on Themyscira. The flaming scarlet globe dipped tentatively into the blue waves, flattening and spreading as it gilded the sky. For a breathless age, it would hang suspended before finally plunging headlong into darkness and making way for the great, crystalline stars that took its place.

The golden glory was at its height when Hippolyta found her daughter. Diana curled beside a window, staring out at the beauty with thoughtful, unseeing eyes. She had bathed and changed, but a comb lay unheeded in her lap and her wet hair tangled around her shoulders. In a corner, the winged sandals fluffed their feathers and preened, seemingly still annoyed at their soaking earlier.

For a moment, Hippolyta watched, silently. Then, without a word, she crossed the room and took the comb from her daughter's lax fingers. Diana flinched, suddenly aware, but she didn't protest as her mother sat behind her and began to gently work the comb through the damp, messy mass of her hair.

This quiet ritual had happened so many, many times throughout the ages, although not as often since Diana had become a woman. Neither one spoke as Hippolyta methodically worked out the tangles until the comb could glide smoothly from Diana's scalp to the tips of her hair.

If only it were this easy to untangle the other things troubling her daughter.

"Epione will not let me help," Diana said eventually. Out across the water, the sun was very nearly to the point of slipping beneath the horizon, and the red light bathed the two women in a warm glow.

"As she should," Hippolyta responded without heat. "It is different to heal a human. They are more fragile. She needs to concentrate."

Even now, there was barely a chance that Steve Trevor would survive. Amazonian healing methods were effective, but not meant for mortals.

There was another long pause, filled only with the sound of the comb sliding through long hair over and over. The sun was fully set and Diana's hair hung like a silken mantle around her shoulders by the time she suddenly turned and laid her head in her mother's lap. It was an open, unexpectedly affectionate gesture, and it caught Hippolyta briefly off guard.

Diana hadn't done this in years.

Then again, she had faced so much in this last short space of time.

Hippolyta traced a light line across her daughter's features with her fingertips, smoothing the puckers in Diana's forehead and around her eyes. It was a tender caress she had not used on her daughter since the girl was a child.

"There is so much ugliness," said Diana at last, as though she was continuing a conversation they'd been having the entire time. "So much hatred and death and pain in their short lives."

"Then will you stay?" Hippolyta prompted, just as softly.

Diana lifted dark eyelashes and looked up at her mother. The stars through the open window reflected in her eyes.

"There is also love," she said quietly. "And friendship, and music, and dancing, and ice cream and brand new little babies. Someone has to fight to save all that."

So the soldier had taught her daughter love, then - love beyond the sisterly and filial affection she had known heretofore. Hippolyta had wondered, but now she knew for sure. It was a lesson that would make Diana at once both stronger and more vulnerable - a lesson Hippolyta herself had once learned long ago, and which had made her what she was.

 _They do not deserve you, Diana_ , her breaking heart whispered. _They will never deserve you._

"I understand," she said instead, and laid her hand lightly over Diana's eyes so her daughter would not see her tears in the starlight. She had never been prouder of her precious girl; never been more heartbroken. "I understand."

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 **Fun Fact: The line about the Amazons wanting to throw him into the sea comes from a comic panel that I accidentally found while researching Epione. I'm not sure what issue it's from, but if anybody knows, please tell me so I can credit it!**

 **In other news, there will be one more chapter. I'd initially miscalculated and thought there would be three, but Hippolyta decided she wanted some time to herself in this one.**

 **Thanks for the kind reception and reviews! You've no idea how happy they've made me. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

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The ceiling was richly burnished metal.

Somehow that didn't look familiar at all.

Steve Trevor tried to blink, discovered that he could, and then shifted his gaze a little to the right.

There was some kind of design hammered around the edge of the ceiling - something martial perhaps, with a lot of helmets and swords and horses' legs and things, but his vision kept blurring in and out, and his eyes _would_ keep trying to close.

This was unacceptable. He was a _spy_ , for heaven's sake! Steve mentally shook himself, and then experimentally tried to turn his head. That worked too. Evidently his bed was placed next to a window, with a stunning view of - well, the sky. Anything else was below the level of the windowsill, and right now the last thing he wanted to do was sit up.

Okay, maybe he'd better try turning his head to the other side.

Alternatively, he could get forty winks in, and _then_ try.

He was just beginning to seriously consider the second course of action, when somebody on his other side caught their breath and shifted, fabric sliding against fabric.

"Are you awake?"

Forty winks forgotten, Steve turned his head faster than he'd thought possible, blinking as the world swam into focus again.

"Diana?" he croaked, and then had to stop and clear his throat. Diana beamed, crawling across the bed to get a cup off the bedside table, and then crawling back to kneel beside him again. Her hair was in a long braid once more, swinging over her shoulder as she looked down into his face. The sense of _deja vu_ was so strong that he could almost taste the sea salt, almost feel the sand beneath him from their first meeting.

"Here, drink," she urged, holding the cup to his lips. It was very embarrassing, but when he raised his hand to take the glass, it didn't quite work for some reason. So he obediently drank - something smooth, definitely not water or alcohol or milk or…

Wait, was he on that island of hers again?

"Where are we?" he asked.

For the first time since he could remember, Diana looked genuinely nervous, biting her lip. "We are on Themyscira. What do you remember?"

"Um." Steve frowned. His head felt funny, but when he lifted his arm to scratch his head, nothing happened. Puzzled, he looked down - and then froze.

"Diana? Diana, where's my - my _hand_ , Diana. Diana, my…"

He tried to sit up, panicking, and she was instantly there, hands on his shoulders, helping him. "You lost it," she explained. "You lost it when we fought Ares. I'm sorry - I couldn't find it after."

Steve wasn't listening, staring down at his half-arm in fascinated horror, mouth running on almost hysterically. "Lost it? Diana, you don't just _lose_ hands - they're kind of attached, they're..."

 _Fire._

He remembered it suddenly - the feeling of pulling the trigger with a sharp click - the last heartbeat before the bombs ignited - the numb shock as the explosion enveloped his extended hand and arm before striking the rest of him. He panted, open-mouthed, overwhelmed, unseeing eyes trained blankly forward as the events of that night flooded through his senses in almost painful clarity.

Eventually, he discovered that Diana was kneeling next to him, patting his arm soothingly, leaning forward so she could look better into his face. "You remember?"

"I - remember." Steve ran his tongue across his lips. He felt sick to his stomach, and his mouth was dry again, but otherwise he felt reasonably normal. A quick inventory told him that his other hand seemed to be all right, and the twin lumps under the blanket moved reassuringly when he wiggled his feet around. "Some things. Look, are there any more pieces of me that are missing?"

"No, no, everything is there." Diana tipped her head to one side. "Well, all but your hair, but that is growing back."

"My hair!" Steve yelped, and put up the wrong hand to feel his head. Of course he felt nothing - there wasn't a hand on that arm anymore. This was going to take some getting used to, but he didn't want to think about that right now.

Reaching up with his left hand instead, he gingerly felt around his scalp. It seemed to be covered in a short crop of hair - almost fuzzy. Curiously, he moved his hand down, touching his face, his ears, his neck, his chest under the collar of his - nightgown?

He was wearing a nightgown. Oh, he was _never_ going to live this one down.

"Why," he demanded, "am I wearing a nightgown?"

Her forehead puckered in confusion. "What else does one sleep in?"

"Pajamas," he told her, with great decision. "Men sleep in pajamas. Not nightgowns. Never nightgowns."

"All right," Diana agreed comfortably. "I do not know what a pajama looks like, but I am sure we can make one, if you like."

Steve barely heard her - he had finally put a finger on what was bothering him. His skin was firm and smooth like it had always been, and when he breathed in and out, there was no discomfort. Even the stump of his right arm was only lightly bandaged, cleanly healed over and pain-free.

This wasn't adding up.

He had _known_ he was going to die. There was no way to survive such a blast. He had faced a battle with himself in the cockpit of that plane, all his hopes and dreams and love for living lined up against the terrible cost of human life otherwise. He had fought that battle, and he had won, and pulled the trigger knowing full well that it would be the last and hardest thing he would ever do.

"Diana?" he breathed, the words coming more slowly and shakily than he would have wished. "How am I still alive?"

She told him then. Simply, straightforwardly. He swallowed convulsively when she got to the part about finding him, when she described his injuries. He had seen what was left of pilots who burned alive in their own machines when a flight went wrong. To think that had been him, not so very long ago - it made his stomach turn.

"...and then I brought you home, and my mother and her sisters healed you," Diana finished at last. Her eyes were sober. "I am truly sorry I could not find your arm. There never was much hope, but we always could have tried…"

Steve shook his head. Thinking back, he was pretty sure his arm had been incinerated in the terrific blast. It was only a miracle that the rest of him had not followed suit - or maybe it was due to the fact that hydrogen was lighter than air, directing the explosion more upward than outward - or it could be because he had washed in the Amazon's pool once before and the effects had lingered. But that was not something he wanted to dwell on, so instead he changed the subject.

"So let me get this straight - you confronted a god, beat him in a riddle contest, and then got his flying shoes…"

"Sandals," Diana interrupted, nodding.

"... flying _sandals_ ," Steve corrected himself, and then craned his neck to get a better look at the sandals in question as they darted past the open door, golden wings flashing as they chased each other down the length of the hallway outside. "Is this - is this all in a day's work for you? I guess there's a reason why your people are the stuff of legends."

He had meant it as a figure of speech, but Diana took it entirely in stride.

"I am of the Amazons. It is what we do," she said simply, shrugging. Then she looked away, and her voice dropped. "Besides," she breathed, "I could not let you die."

She was not crying, but there was a set to her lips that made him think she was not far off from tears - and that was actually rather terrifying. Steve looked at her for a moment, and then reached across the covers to take her hand. She immediately turned her hand inside his, their fingers interlacing, and then they both held tight. There was something very precious in the simple contact.

"So," Steve said, after a moment. "What was the answer to that riddle?"

Diana's eyes sparkled again. "You would not care to guess?"

"I would not be _able_ to guess," Steve countered immediately. "Not in a million years."

"Neither could Hermes. It was an answer he never learned, I think. Sometimes I do not even think mankind knows it either, which discourages me. It was the answer you taught me." Diana's face shone. "The answer is Love."

It was a surprising way to think about it, but now that Steve considered the idea, he supposed she had a point. Sure, there was plenty of hate and everything else out there, but it was love that won through in the end - love of family, of friends, of country - not to mention the way he felt about the woman kneeling next to him now.

Since she'd mentioned their flight, he thought he remembered a little of it. Mostly he recalled the vague blur of her face above his, moonlight tracing the fine lines of her features as he lay locked in an agony that his mind now struggled to comprehend.

"You saved my life," said Steve after a minute of looking at her - the curve of her high cheekbones, the dark warm pools of her eyes. She was the most sincere, beautiful woman he had ever known. "I don't know how to thank you."

She settled into a more comfortable position, and squeezed his hand. "You do not need to thank me. Besides, now that mankind's war is over, who will show me what life is like afterwards?"

Her innocent question snapped Steve's mind into sharp focus, and he swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, remembering their conversation the night he had taught her to dance. "I - I think a lot of men would be happy to help you out there," he confessed honestly.

"Yes," agreed Diana artlessly. "But I don't love any of _them_."

The implications of her statement were plain. The warm, wonderful look on her face was even plainer. Steve distinctly felt his heart jolt.

He hadn't known whether or not she had heard his last words to her. She'd been so dazed when he'd left her on that airfield, reeling as if in a dream, struggling to focus as he tried to say goodbye. He had ached for more time, but time was up, and he'd had to go.

" _I love you,"_ he had confessed, pressing his watch into her unresisting hands, leaving her with the only thing he had left to give - because he'd long since lost his heart to her, somewhere along the line.

He hadn't known then if she'd comprehended his words.

And he _certainly_ hadn't dared hope that she would ever return the sentiment.

Steve stared incredulously at her for a moment, and then he cleared his throat and hitched himself a little higher in the bed. Tearing his gaze away, he stole a cautious peek at the empty doorway, and then looked back into the face of the woman he loved, filling his soul with the sight of her.

Then he let go of her hand and wonderingly raised his fingers to her cheek, lightly tracing the curve of her jawline, calloused fingertips barely touching her skin.

"What do you think the chances are," he asked in a low voice, "that I could kiss you without your mother or one of your aunts coming in to chop more pieces off of me? Because I think I really, really want to, right about now."

Diana's eyes laughed conspiratorially back at him, and the sunlight through the window turned her skin to living gold. "Try, and find out."

There was a pause - a breathless, heartstopping moment filled with mingled light and hope and understanding - and then Steve Trevor took her challenge and met her halfway.

 _Because some things,_ he thought rather distantly, pulling her closer with what remained of his right arm as she slipped her own arms around his neck, _were worth losing a hand for_.

And Diana Prince was one of them.

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 **The End**

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 **Well, folks - that's it! Thanks for all the love and support. If you have enjoyed this story** _ **at all**_ **, then please take a couple seconds to leave a review and let me know! It doesn't have to be much, but you have no idea how happy it makes me. :)**

 ***Dusts off hands and looks around with satisfaction, then nods and scurries back to the Captain America fandom***

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 **Guest: Thank you so much!**

 **Verafenestra: That is, hands down, one of the most flattering reviews I've ever received. :) You totally made my week with it. Thank you!**


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